Our passivity has resulted, however, in much more than imperial adventurism and a permanent underclass. A slow-motion coup by a corporate state has cemented into place a neofeudalism in which there are only masters and serfs. And the process is one that cannot be reversed through the traditional mechanisms of electoral politics.
Last Thursday I traveled to Washington to join Rep. Dennis Kucinich for a public teach-in on the wars. Kucinich used the Capitol Hill event to denounce the new request by Barack Obama for an additional $33 billion for the war in Afghanistan. The Ohio Democrat has introduced H. Com Res. 248, with 16 co-sponsors, which would require the House of Representatives to debate whether to continue the Afghanistan war. Kucinich, to his credit, is the only member of Congress to publicly condemn the Obama administration’s authorization to assassinate Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and cleric living in Yemen, over alleged links to a failed Christmas airline bombing in Detroit. Kucinich also invited investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, writer/activist David Swanson, retired Army Col. Ann Wright and Iraq war veteran Josh Stieber to the event.
The gathering, held in the Rayburn Building, was a sober reminder of our insignificance. There were no other Congress members present, and only a smattering of young staff members attended. Most of the audience of about 70 were peace activists who, as is usual at such events, were joined by a motley collection of conspiracy theorists who believe 9/11 was an inside job or that former Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash, was assassinated. Scahill and Swanson provided a litany of disturbing statistics that illustrated how corporations control all systems of power. Corporations have effectively taken over our internal security and intelligence apparatus. They run our economy and manage our systems of communication. They own the two major political parties. They have built a private military. They loot the U.S. Treasury at will. And they have become unassailable. Those who decry the corporate coup are locked out of the national debate and become as marginalized as Kucinich.

Agree. Peace movement is dead because of all volunteer military and most citizens' drug addiction to mainstream corporate media. Cripes, our self-styled tea party rebels imagine they are thinking independently when they listen to Beck or Savage -- stooges for the military industrial governmental complex. Bush and Cheney flushed more money down the toilet on their endless wars than Obama will ever spend, yet they are successfully blaming him for their economic disasters. We have never experienced war in our country and so we don't realize the hatred it creates in those countries we invade. Most people don't understand entrepreneurism and the creation of economic wealth. They think we can acquire wealth by wars and financial gimmicks. Doesn't work in the long run. Check out youtube "Chalmers Johnson speaking freely". The WTC towers did come down through explosive demolition. If you think this is not true, then you'll have no problem wagering me $10,000, because I have no problem putting my $10,000 where my mouth is. Check out mikeshoenforcongress.com, page "911 nonsense".